Drivers in and around the Crescent City have long complained of abandoned tires, garbage, and other debris along roadways. It’s become a persistent and ever-visible problem for the region. New Orleans City Councilmember Eugene Green joined WWL’s Tommy Tucker to discuss illegal dumping in New Orleans and what can be done to alleviate the problem going forward.
“Sometimes it’s hard to grasp what’s going on because it’s so simple. There are criminals who have been paid to haul away matter and refuse by landlords, people who own tire shops, etc who simply don’t want to spend the money that they’ve made to properly dispose of it. So, they find a dark area off of some street or behind some neighborhood, maybe under the interstate where they think they can get away with it, and they dump (things) there,” Green explained.
In one alarming instance, a load of illegally dumped tires actually blocked in postal workers. “I got a call at 8am saying someone had dumped something illegal on a street between Dowman Road and the post office, so the people in the post office couldn’t get out,” Green told WWL’s Tommy Tucker.
Green was quick to praise the sanitation department for getting to the scene quickly after being alerted to it to collect those tires.
However, Green is asking for a federal investigation into the incident, as it is illegal to block access to a federal facility. “That’s how bad it’s gotten,” Green emphasized. “These criminals just dump wherever they think they can,” he went on to emphasize.
While Green suspects that much of the illegal dumping is being done due to some being ignorant about the law, he was quick to point out that many of the illegally dumped items can be disposed of with normal trash. “Most things you can get picked up in front of your house. You can get four tires picked up from in front of your house every week. You can get everything that’s left outside from furniture and the like. This dumping is being done by criminals who are being paid for their work and they don’t want to do the right thing,” Green told WWL’s Tommy Tucker.
Ultimately, the Councilman urges the public to help in the fight against illegally dumped trash by contacting law enforcement when they see it happening. “We need your help, because a lot of the dumping is done by people in other states, so that becomes interstate commerce,” Green noted. “It’s a serious problem, but it’s going to take fining people and penalties and enforcing those once they’re caught. It can’t be a slap on the wrist, because it costs the city millions of dollars per year to remove litter and the products of illegal dumping,” he added.